Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Make Improving Your Finances Your Part-Time Job

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Imagine you give all the money you make in a month to an accountant and ask him to manage the money for you.  However, at the end of the month, he can’t tell you where the money went, just that it’s gone.  You’d likely be highly upset and fire the accountant.  Yet, that’s how millions of people handle their money.  You can’t fire yourself, but you can educate yourself and make improving your finances your part-time job.

Make Improving Your Finances Your Part-Time Job

Are You Like Most Americans?

When is the last time you took a vested interest in your own finances?  Do you make a budget every month?  Do you track how much you spend each month and on what?  If you don’t, you’re not alone.  In fact, approximately 60% of Americans don’t have a monthly budget (Business Insider).

How much time have you spent reading personal finance books and articles in the last year?  Learning about investing?  If you’re like the average American, the answer is not much.

Instead, many of us spend time doing activities that really don’t help us much in the future—scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, watching our favorite tv show, having a Netflix binge, talking on the phone or texting.

Make Improving Your Finances Your Part-Time Job

What if you used just a fraction of that time to improve your finances?  How different would your financial situation be a year from now?  Five years from now?  Ten years?

If you’re finances aren’t in the shape you’d like, why not challenge yourself to make improving your finances your part-time job?

What Is the Weekly Time Commitment?

Don’t worry, improving your finances isn’t going to take a lot of time.  I’m just asking you to set aside two to four hours a week to improve your finances.  You won’t be sorry.

Make Improving Your Finances Your Part-Time Job
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

What can you do in that amount of time?  Plenty.

  • Set up a budget
  • Track your spending
  • Pay your bills
  • Call your credit card company to get your interest rates reduced
  • Investigate refinancing your student loans, and if doing so will save you interest, actually refinance them
  • Read a personal finance book
  • Call your internet and cable provider to get your monthly bill reduced
  • Investigate house and vehicle insurance costs and change companies if you’ll save money and get the same coverage
  • Get an assessment on your home to potentially lower your property tax bill
  • Learn about investing
  • Take free online personal finance classes
  • Invest some of your money
  • Sell some of your unused items on Craigslist or Facebook
  • Listen to personal finance podcasts

This is only a small list of things you can do when you start your part-time job of managing your money, yet you can reap serious financial rewards.

Tools to Use

If you’re new to taking an educated, methodical approach to improving your finances, there are many places to go to learn more.  There are also many tools available.

You Need a Budget (YNAB)

For the last four years, I’ve been budgeting using You Need a Budget (YNAB).  I’ll admit, there’s a bit of a learning curve to using this software, but there are many free online trainings you can watch that cover every aspect of how to use the software.  There’s also an active Facebook group, YNAB (You Need a Budget) Fans, where you can find quick answers to many of the questions you might have about the software.

If you’re interested in trying YNAB, you can sign up for a 34-day trial for free.

Morningstar Free Investing Classes

Don’t know the first thing about investing?  Don’t worry.  That’s how everyone starts.  When you make improving your finances your part-time job, investing is an important concept to master.  Morningstar offers a number of free classes that cover a wide-range of topics:

  • Stocks,
  • Funds,
  • Portfolios,
  • Bonds,
  • ETFs,
  • Retirement, and
  • Planning

To access these free courses, simply sign up for a free Morningstar account.

The Library

Make Improving Your Finances Your Part-Time Job
Photo by Devon Divine on Unsplash

Another excellent, free place to learn more about money management and investments is the library.  You can find so many books there that will teach you about improving your finances!  Some of my favorite money management books include:

I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi,

The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke by Suze Orman,

How to Make Your Money Last by Jane Bryant Quinn, and

Is Your Child a Money Master or Money Monster by Sunny Lee (excellent book for teaching your children in a natural way about money management)

YouTube

You can find many money management and investment videos on YouTube.  Just be sure to first check the credentials of the person offering advice.  Anyone can put up a YouTube video.

I sometimes enjoy watching Dave Ramsey videos (though not when he goes on tangents).

If you’re new to budgeting, there are people on YouTube who share their budgets every month.  One person that many people find inspiring is The Budget Mom.  She shares her budget each month and also does a recap at the end of the month.

Make It Fun

If the idea of spending a few hours a week on personal finance makes your eyes glaze over with boredom, try to make the time fun.  Set aside a certain time, maybe Saturday morning, or a few minutes every day.  Get comfy and make your favorite drink and settle in to work.

Investing Time Now Means You’ll Save Time Later

Remember, as you increase your financial education, you won’t need to spend as much time on your finances.  Maybe initially you’ll spend four hours a week or 16 hours a month, but a year or two down the line, when your finances are better and you know more, you may only need to spend two hours a week or eight hours a month.

As your financial situation improves, you’ll likely have more incentive to keep spending a little time each week working on your finances.

Try it.  What do you have to lose except a better financial future?

How much time do you spend every week working on your finances and growing your financial knowledge?

Does Your Car Insurance Pay for These Items?

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Do you know what benefits your car insurance has?  Sure, we all know if we get in a car accident, we pay our deductible and get our car fixed thanks to insurance.  But did you know there are several other items your car insurance might cover without requiring you to pay a deductible?  Does your car insurance pay for these items?  I recently learned that these free services are included as part of my car insurance.

Does Your Car Insurance Pay for These Services?

Changing a Flat Tire

I wish I was making this up, but I’m not.  I was driving my child home from school when I saw in my path a metal rake lying completely across my lane.  On my right was a curb, and on my left was a full lane of traffic, so there was nowhere to go.

I tried to avoid the rake, but it punctured my tire.  When I woke up the next day to take my son to school, the tire was completely flat.  Did I mention my husband was out of town?  My son and I tried to get the old tire off, but, thanks to snowy Chicago winters, it was rusted on.  Our neighbor tried to help, but he couldn’t get it off, either.  He then mentioned that I should call my insurance.

Does Your Car Insurance Pay for These Items?
Photo by Sebastian Huxley on Unsplash

I did call my car insurance, and within two hours, a tow truck driver was at our house.  He took off the flat tire, put on the replacement, and didn’t charge me anything.  This was a free of charge service included with our car insurance.  I had no idea.

Windshield Replacement

I was driving on the highway when I heard a loud crack!  I looked at the bottom corner of the passenger side of the windshield and saw that there was a crack forming.  During our 20-minute drive, the crack spread two feet.  During our drive back home, the crack slowly snaked itself halfway across our windshield.

I discovered that our insurance would replace the windshield free of charge.  The insurance company scheduled the appointment for me, and a day later, two men showed up at my house and replaced the windshield in less than 45 minutes.  Again, I didn’t have to pay anything or even do anything.  The insurance handled it all.  I just needed to be home.

Final Thoughts

I used to be hesitant to call my car insurance unless I was facing a major repair.  I didn’t want to pay a deductible AND face having my car insurance go up because of my claim.  But as I learned from recent experience, there are several things your car insurance might cover that doesn’t require you to pay a deductible.  My insurer told me as long as I’m not using these services frequently, the insurance company is happy to offer these services free of charge.  Does your car insurance pay for these items?  If you don’t know, try calling your insurance agency to see if they cover these types of repairs and if there are others they may cover free of charge.

How Not to Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

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Even if you’re rational, it’s hard not to panic when you go to the grocery store and see empty shelves.  You may wonder how not to overspend when stocking up for a home quarantine.  That sense of panic can fuel you to spend more than you normally do on groceries because you feel a desperation to just.get.food.  But calm down, take a deep breath, and realize there is enough food in the supply chain.  You will have food, but perhaps not the food you want.

How Not To Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

How Not to Overspend When Stocking Up for a Home Quarantine

Take these steps to keep your budget in line, even during times of crisis.

Do a Pantry and Freezer Inventory

Before you go to the grocery store, take the time to do a complete pantry and freezer inventory.  You may be surprised what you find in the depths of your freezer.  I had more meat than I thought I did.  I even a found a homemade pie crust in a ball that we had made two years ago.  You bet that we’re still going to use that.

Likewise, you may have more in your pantry than you think.  Plus, taking all of the items out and inventorying them can help you feel less desperate.  You DO have food in the house.

See what recipes you can create from what you have on hand.  Likely you can come up with many meals than you thought.  Don’t forget to use sites like Supercook, a site where you can put in the ingredients you have on hand, and the site produces recipes using those ingredients.

Be Flexible with Food Choices

When you do get to the grocery store or place your order for pick up, don’t be surprised if many of the items you want to buy are unavailable or limited.  I’ve placed two orders for pick up now and both times the store couldn’t completely fulfill my order.  For instance, the first trip, there were no eggs available.  The second trip, we were allowed to buy two dozen—for our family of five.

How Not to Overspend When Preparing for a Home Quarantine
Photo by Semi O on Unsplash

Clearly we won’t be eating eggs for breakfast every day, and that’s okay.  Instead, we’ve branched into other breakfast foods that we typically don’t eat like homemade muffins, oatmeal, and even sometimes leftover soup from the previous night’s dinner.  Be willing to be as flexible as possible with what you eat and when during this time, and you will be able to keep your budget in check.

Allocate Money from Other Budget Categories

If you still have your regular income coming in and you find that you are overspending in your groceries category, one way you can resolve this is to take money from a different category.  For instance, we overspent this month on groceries.  I can’t shop many stores for the clearance items as I used to do, so our spending increased.  However, we put $140 in our gas category every two weeks, and now, being self-quarantined, we don’t need that money.  I simply funnel it to our groceries category.

Of course, if you’re currently unemployed, you’ll want to use as little money as possible for groceries so you’ll be able to meet your other financial responsibilities.

Final Thoughts

We’re living in strange times the likes of which our country hasn’t seen in over 100 years, not since the time of the Spanish Flu.  However, rest assured that you can still get the groceries you need without seriously overspending.  Just plan ahead with your purchases and be resigned to the fact that you won’t be able to eat the way you can when we’re not under quarantine.